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Teaching Wireless Phones New Tricks

Techstination feature for Friday, February 9, 2001

Teaching your wireless phone some new tricks. I'm Fred Fishkin with Bloomberg Bootcamp. Most of us are still only using our wireless phones... just for making and receiving calls. Sure, lots of phones have Web browsing and text messaging available... but in the United States at least most people haven't gotten around to using those services. But Qualcomm believes that will be changing... .soon. VP Gina Lombardi... says what Qualcomm has developed is a software platform that will transform the way we use those wireless phone. It is called Brew...

"Now you'll be able to download applications to the handset and you'll be able to configure your desktop as you do on your computer, on your handset. So that now every handset and every person will have their own unique handset that they will have configured like they do with their personal computer."

For instance...

"You'll be able to download music, you'll be able to download video, you'll be able to use it for position location so when I arrive in New York City for a business trip, I'll be able to download the map of New York City and then I'll be able to find the closest Starbucks or the closest McDonald's or wherever I want to go with my map application."

Qualcomm is working with a wide range of software developers and wireless phone manufacturers ... to bring the new Brew platform to the masses... .even on inexpensive phones. Some applications could be in the hands of consumers by the end of this year. Bootcamp, I'm Fred Fishkin, Bloomberg Radio.